I've always loved airports. All the possibility! All the places you can go. One of my first memories was the massive departures/arrivals board at Frankfurt airport in Germany - one of those old flippy kinds, where all of a sudden the letters and numbers whip into a frenzy, whirring and clicking like a million typewriters, stopping with a new display of far-away worlds: Karachi, Cairo, Tokyo, New York, Dakar...

At the moment I don't live near a big international hub like that, but the feeling is close to the same no matter what airport I'm in: ahhh, the smell of jet fuel, the shuffly sound of hundreds of people wheeling their suitcases, the background p.a. announcements (especially lovely if delivered in more than one foreign language), and the crew, of course, all stripes and uniforms and well-worn flight cases. Emerging from secret elevators and breezing through doors requiring passcodes. What exactly is back there? I've always wanted to know.

So I asked around, and - lucky me - a dream came true at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. With my very own visitor's badge and personal escort, I took a tour of the TRACON room and the control tower, went through several secret doors, found out where the peanuts are stored, and strolled to the gates with the captains. Tim let us onto his plane and John sat me up front and showed me what handles and switches and buttons (don't push the red one!) did what. TOO fun. For a day I was with the in-crowd, feeling like Cinderella. Whenever I'm at an airport now I smile for a new reason: I've had a glimpse of what's behind the scenes. Thank you, John, and Tim, and everyone at Detroit Metro for making a little dream of mine come true.